See How Snapchat’s CEO Joked About Peeing On Women and “Fucking Bitches” and Feel Terrible About the World

At this point, it’s not exactly surprising to learn that an influential man in the tech industry happens to have misogynistic tendencies. And yet, it’s still dismaying, and with the recent misogyny-fueled shooting spree in Santa Barbara, it’s important to continue the conversation about the prevalence of sexism in our society.

Today, Valleywag released several of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s emails, written while Spiegel was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Stanford. The emails reveal Spiegel’s opinions on matters as varied as what makes a good frat party (“at least six girls suck[ing] your dick”) and how to get sorority girls “fucked up” (“300 small white dixie cups/ 2 handles of Vitali or other plastic bottle vodka around $12*”) and how to deal with the fact that those sorority girls might be “frigid” (“another tray of rubbing alcohol/jello-flavored shots… drink sex would be a ton of fun”) and who to play laser tag with (“I thought the whole point was to shoot lazers at fat girls.. ?”) [sic; obviously].

Now while you might be thinking that I’m being unnecessarily harsh because Spiegel wrote these emails when he was in college, bear in mind that Spiegel is only 23-years-old and that these emails are less than 4-years-old. As Valleywag’s Sam Biddle points out, at the same time that Spiegel was sending these offensive emails, he was also working toward building the company that would eventually become Snapchat. These emails that joke about peeing on women as they sleep were being written by someone who was laying the groundwork for a company that is now valued at billions of dollars! (Spiegel turned down offers of $3 and $4 billion dollars from, respectively, Facebook and Google.) These emails were written by someone who would later go on to date Taylor Swift! And no, that is not entirely relevant, other than to say that Taylor Swift can do much, much better. These emails were written by someone who is not an aberration in the tech industry, but is rather seen as the gold standard. And that, right there, is everything wrong with the tech industry today.

One of the best pieces written about Elliot Rodgers and our cultural problem with misogyny was by self-proclaimed “nerd,” Arthur Chu. Titled “Your Princess Is In Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement and Nerds,” Chu confronts the systemic problems in the industry that he—and Spiegel—are a part of, and writes, “the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to ‘earn,’ to ‘win.’ That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well.” And while Chu isn’t speaking solely about tech (more about many of the people who work in it) and certainly not about Spiegel specifically, the sense of entitlement that he writes about is applicable to Spiegel’s view on women, which seems to consist mainly of seeing them as receptacles for his dick.

Perhaps Spiegel has matured in the last few years; perhaps he doesn’t think it’s so funny anymore to joke about date rape. Maybe he’s grown up. But the fact remains that his is the type of sensibility that is valued in the tech industry. He is the type of person at whom billions of dollars are being thrown. His is the industry which we’re supposed to admire and encourage younger generations to aspire to work in. We should be able to expect better from people like Spiegel, yes, but also better from the people who think it’s fine to support a culture in which the answer to life’s problems can be solved by having “some girl put your large kappa sigma dick down her throat.”

*Clearly this was when Spiegel was operating under different budgetary constraints than he does now. Or maybe he just likes shitty alcohol.

3 COMMENTS

Kind of feel like this has much less to do with the tech industry, and much more to do with the attitude of many young American men, in general. We only learned of Spiegal’s abhorrent views because he is “important” enough to get his email hacked, but I’m guessing if you took a look at the emails among a huge portion of young men, especially in college fraternities, you might find the same thing–and it’s no less disturbing that people who don’t go on to become bajillionaires in the tech industry also have these views.

Barfing, Billionaire. Unfortunately, women will still line up to suck on his rich d*ck. Money & power, even someone else’s, is very intoxicating…..Don’t even get me going on fraternities & sororities….rich kids gone wild..while mommy & daddy pay for school….